Exodus 23:16

And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

And the feast of harvest - called also "the Feast of Weeks," or Pentecost, 50 days after the sheaf was waved (See the notes at Exodus 20:1; Leviticus 23:15; Numbers 28:26; Deuteronomy 16:9: cf. Josephus, 'Antiquities,' b. 3:, ch. 10:, sec. 6, where it is called Asartha - i:e., assembly).

The first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in thy field - i:e., not the first ripe grains that were reaped, the earliest commencement of the harvest, but bread which was baked of the first-fruits of the field, and which, when offered as two wave loaves of the new grain, were called 'first-fruits of the wheat harvest' (Leviticus 23:17). This feast is first instituted here, as also the one about to be mentioned.

And the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year. This third feast, called also the feast of Tabernacles, commencing on the 15th day of the seventh month, and lasting seven days (see the notes at Leviticus 23:34; Numbers 29:12), was appointed as a season of thanksgiving for the bountiful supply of the various and valuable fruits of the earth; and as it was a most joyous season, accompanied with the liveliest demonstrations of hilarity and merriment, it was designated by Rabbinical writers as, par excellence, "the feast." It lasted, like the first, for seven days. "In the end of the year" refers, as Hupfeld remarks, 'to an old agrarian measurement of time, which was in use before the age of Moses, when the civil year was reckoned as beginning with the preparation of the soil for seed-sowing, and ended when all the produce of the ground had been completely gathered. In this passage the time of observing this feast is stated in a very general and indefinite manner, the month and days being specified with minute particularity (Leviticus 23:39).